Starting at the end is defining a vision for a photograph before I start, which includes a look, an idea, a message, and a goal. Starting at the beginning is getting some objects and starting to photograph them.

Design can be defined as thinking, looking, and doing. Starting at the end requires a lot of looking and thinking up-front, whereas starting at the beginning requires mainly doing at the outset.

That's what I'm doing with all these packing materials. In an earlier post, I wondered about themes, such as waste, and overuse, but it's pretty clear we're not headed in that direction. And I'm not really thinking about it very much, just moving stuff around and taking a picture.

Working this way is appealing in that I'm free to wander around, and can take tangents as they come up, and I don't have to adhere to any sort of guidelines. But at the same time, it can be frustrating because I can't really track progress, because there's no goalpost.

And that's the main thing about starting at the beginning: while it's an interesting trip, I'm not sure if I get there, because I never defined where I was going.